Vice President & Dean of the School of Health Professions

C. Donald Combs, PhD, serves as Vice President and Dean of the School of Health Professions at EVMS. His responsibilities include direction of all EVMS health professions programs, academic planning, oversight of medical modeling and simulation, program development, accreditation liaison, and directing educational outreach programs.

Dr. Combs holds senior faculty appointments with the EVMS School of Health Professions and the Department of Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Engineering at Old Dominion University. He has long-standing research interests in health and human services management, emergency response, health workforce research, health professions regulation, organizational development, strategic planning, and medical modeling and simulation. These interests are reflected in his professional publications and conference presentations; many consultancies with federal, state and local agencies, non-profit services organizations and businesses; and $115 million in external funding.

He currently serves on several regional, state and national boards and task forces that address national and international health policy. Dr. Combs is active in the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the Association of Academic Health Centers (AHC) and in national policy discussions addressing health workforce planning, applied information systems and medical modeling and simulation.

In the international arena, Dr. Combs has worked with colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School to develop and implement the International Health Resource Management executive education program that has served some 20 nations, including Moldova, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Nepal, Botswana and El Salvador. He holds degrees received with distinction from South Plains College (A.A.), Texas Tech University (B.A. and M.A.) and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (Ph.D.). He was also awarded an honorary doctoral degree from Moldova’s State Medical and Pharmaceutical University in 2002 for his service in reforming its primary-care health system.